


This Awful Energy

by tricksterity



Category: Pitch Black (2000), The Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Headcanon Furyan Biology, Headcanon Furyan History
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 13:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4963024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricksterity/pseuds/tricksterity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Shirah Riddick was listening to her daughter’s screams when the comet fell from the sky.</i>
</p><p>Riddick's childhood consisted of being constantly passed around - from Furya to a trader ship, street kids to foster homes and military academies. Before he became a convict and criminal, he was just a kid trying to survive and do his best to protect the people he picked up along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I've decided to embark on a longfic of Riddick's childhood, up through his teen years, incorporating as much canon as I can. This will all - hopefully - still fall in line with canon and not contradict anything that happens in the films. I haven't seen any fics like this and there are so many years where we don't know what happened to Riddick or how he became who he was. This also includes Escape from Butcher Bay, Assault on Dark Athena and Dark Fury as canon events that all occur before Pitch Black (with the exception of Dark Fury). 
> 
> Not sure how often this'll update, but I've got a rough outline of what I want to do and I'm going from there.

* * *

  

_And all the kids cried out / please stop you’re scaring me / I can’t help this awful energy / goddamn right you should be scared of me / who is in control?_

_Halsey - Control_

 

Shirah Riddick was listening to her daughter’s screams when the comet fell from the sky. A shockwave emanated across the city as something massive passed through the upper atmosphere and pierced into the lower, and Furya’s heavy gravity forced it to the ground with hard enough force to shake the entire plateau. Shirah was nearly knocked off her feet from the blast, but her instincts kept her upright, and she loosened her sword from it’s scabbard as she approached the nearest window, looking out across the twilight-dim horizon.

 

In shades of fuschia and crimson, she saw the huge column that had shattered the Temple of the Ancients rise up into the sky, a stone monolith that spoke of death and horror. Shirah’s people had heard of them as a far off threat that barely touched their quadrant of the galaxy, and their early-warning off world detectors had never alerted them to anything. To the naked eye, it had appeared as nothing more than a large comet, even to an Alpha’s eyes.

 

Shockwaves emanated through Shirah’s bones and soul, and she could feel other monoliths pierce her planet through the awareness of the Consensus that all Furyans were apart of. Their entire planet was under attack. Who was foolish enough to attempt war with their people?

 

“Protect the Riddick!” Shirah ordered as a huge, coffin-shaped ship emerged from the sky and warriors began to pour out in droves, warriors that Shirah could sense were not quite right. Her cry echoed throughout the fortress, and guards poured into the hallway to protect the room where within, Asherah Riddick’s screams could still be heard. Shirah drew her sword and ran into the twilight streets of her city as the people gathered up arms – women, men, and androgyne alike prepared for war.

 

The soldiers that faced them wore heavy, cumbersome armor made of a material that would be cleaved easily with the use of Furyan blades, forged stronger and more unbreakable than any in the galaxy, just like Furyans themselves. Though it was dark, the air was warm, which meant that it was unbearably hot to foreigners, which would give the Furyans an advantage as the opposing army would surely falter in the heat with that armor and those helmets.

 

While the city was situated in a natural plateau, the outskirts of the city rose up into jagged peaks, and beyond that was a harsh wasteland that the Furyans had adapted to over the millennia – due to Furya’s irregular orbit around their sun, it caused their planet to be in near-darkness year-round, and the planet had formed to be dangerous and unrelenting, just like her people.

 

Nobody could win a war against Furyans on their home ground, not when they alone had evolved to it perfectly, and every element of it was nearly fatal to outsiders. Along with Furyans’ natural superior biology due to their dense gravity, these advantages would ensure that they would win this encounter. Shirah’s cry rallied the people around her, and they all cried back to their Alpha as one, and together they charged the oncoming army while Asherah Riddick gave birth to the planet’s next Alpha.

 

Shirah charged the nearest soldier, a burly man a foot taller than herself with a huge, two-handed axe held aloft. She ducked his slow blow with ease, feeling the displacement of air sail across her head, before she bared her teeth and drove her sword into his armor, up under his ribcage, and out of his lower back. He froze, and then crumpled to the ground as she drew out her sword, and he bled red just like all of their old enemies. She had drawn the first blood in this war, and her satisfaction flittered throughout the Consensus into each Furyan though none could truly feel it like Alphas could. All around the planet, all fifty-thousand Alphas drew blood and led their prospective charges, and the bloodlust rose into their people.

 

All around her, the army fell to the swords of the Furyans without a single drop of their blood spilled – it was lunacy to attack Furyans on their homeworld. They were known as the warrior protectors of their entire quadrant for a reason.

 

The Furyans carved a bloody swath through the opposing army without even breaking a sweat, with Shirah’s Alpha vision allowing her to perfectly see even the grains in the metal of the armor of their opponents who stumbled in the near-darkness. Soon all of the outsiders had fallen and there were no more in their way, and Shirah and the other Furyans turned to see the slaughter.

 

More than a half of the army was rising to their feet like the mortal wounds they had been dealt were nothing. A shiver ran down Shirah’s spine as these soldiers hefted their weapons – including the axe wielder she had pierced first – and approached with a menacing silence, not even a war cry. What _were_ these outsiders? Shirah’s blood boiled.

 

“We take off their heads if we must! Nobody survives Furya!” she cried, voice reverberating throughout the streets. The cries of the Furyans replied, and they rushed forward again even as more enemy soldiers descended from the heavens to join into the fight. What Shirah had assumed would be an easy slaughter was now becoming a massacre on both sides – the Furyans had strength, speed and low-light vision as an advantage, but these soldiers took far more effort to kill, they had numbers, and they did not fall from mortal wounds. Shirah bared her teeth in an animalistic snarl as she was knocked down and into a low wall. A warrior approached her, smirk visible even past that ridiculous helmet, and she pushed off the wall with both feet, sword outstretched before her as she corkscrewed through the air and impaled the soldier on her sword. She then planted her feet, grabbed her sword with both hands and _pulled_ upwards until the sword came out of the soldier’s head and he had been split in half.

 

 _Try coming back from that,_ she thought viciously. All around the world, the Furyans fought, and the Alphas in the Consensus communicated their strategies planet-wide. Furyans were always connected, always tactically superior because of it, and that was why the galaxy had learned that an assault on the Furyans would always fail. Just as Shirah was starting to feel confident in the fight again even as Furyans fell around her, the previously silent army all cried out in a bone-chilling unison as a single man stepped off their largest ship.

 

“Threshold! Take us to the Threshold!” they cried, their own war cry. None of the Furyans were foolish enough to pause in their fight to look at the man who was presumably the leader of this undead army, but they heard his orders nonetheless.

 

“Kill every Furyan child. Kill all of their women. Kill the men – leave none alive who could oppose us. Kill every infant you see,” he ordered in a cold voice that was quiet, yet carried throughout the area. At his words, one of the soldiers grabbed a pregnant women by the arm and drove his sword straight through her swollen stomach. The entire area went silent as the Furyan women’s mouth dropped open and her sword clattered to the ground. She looked down at her blood-soaked belly, and she screamed the horrified cry that only a mother could as she saw her own child die.

 

The leader of the army smirked, and Shirah felt the Fury rise up inside of her. The all-encompassing anger that defined the Furyans as who they were, a protective wrath that rose up inside the Consensus and filled every Furyan to the brim with pure rage, and Shirah’s voice echoed throughout the Consensus, so every Furyan alive would hear her words at the realisation of what this man was ordering.

 

“The army intends to slaughter our children, and women, and will go as far as to take the lives of our unborn still within their mothers,” she spoke. She was quiet but filled with fury. “Do not allow them to destroy our people. We are Furyans, and we will show them why they should fear us. For Furya!”

 

The very planet seemed to tremble at the Furyans’ cries, and the arrogant smirk on the leader’s face fell as he met eyes with Shirah, who grinned with blood-covered teeth. She then raised her sword and charged at him, making sure to decapitate every single soldier she came across on her way to him. He drew his own weapon, Alpha against leader, and just as her thigh muscles bunched and she prepared to launch herself at him, two things happened. The Consensus filled with light at the birth of a new Alpha, and a child’s magnified cry echoed across the city.

 

Shirah’s stomach dropped as the leader smirked cruelly at the wail. He started towards the house of Riddick, and Shirah’s blood boiled as the man had the audacity to think of attacking her grandchild. Alpha abilities at their peak, she made her way through the battlefield with ease as time seemed to slow down. She used her momentum to step twice up a wall and onto the roof of a nearby building and began to run, tracking the army’s leader through the battle. With her Alpha abilities she should have been able to overtake nearly any race in the galaxy, and yet the army’s leader managed to stay ahead of her as he took great leaps with some sort of astral form that his physical body then followed, allowing him to cover great distances in an instant.

 

She pushed herself further and leaped across the gaps in buildings, lungs heaving and heart pumping all the blood it could to her extremities to give her even more speed. Without breaking stride she pulled out the throwing daggers strapped to her ankle and hurled them all at the army’s leader in quick succession. He dodged three cleanly, but the fourth just managed to slice through his cheek, drawing blood. He paused in his approach to the fortress to stare back at her in something like impressed shock, but he was close enough that when he turned and took another one of his astral leaps, he was in the entranceway, and Shirah was still too far away.

 

He smirked, and then entered the building, following the sounds of the young Riddick’s birth-wails. Shirah’s heart clenched and her throat closed up in fear, and she screamed an order that all the warriors in the building would be able to hear.

 

“Protect the Riddick!” she screamed. Within seconds she was sailing through the air, the momentum from her leap off the roof propelling her into the entrance of the fortress, the ground cracking as she landed and rolled into a crouch. The entranceway and hallway was filled with dead Furyans, and the young Riddick’s cries had stopped, and she could no longer hear the cries of her daughter.

 

Shirah ran up the stairs four at a time, praying to every deity in the galaxy that she would not be too late, that her daughter and grandchild were still alive. She did not pause as she rounded corners, simply leaped off the wall and continued on, and only stopped in the doorway to the birthing chambers.

 

There was a dagger buried in her daughter’s chest, and the young Riddick child’s face was purple in the leader’s hands as the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck. Shirah allowed one second of pure shock at what she was seeing before the wrath took a hold of her. She screeched as she launched herself at the outsider who had _dared_ to kill her family and invade her planet, but he leaped out the window and was gone.

 

Shirah’s howl echoed throughout the city and the Consensus, grief and rage filling her up to the core as she collapsed next to the corpse of her daughter and her grandson. Asherah’s eyes stared up blankly at the ceiling, shimmering hazel irises gone dull, and blood ran from the corner of her lips from where she had spat out blood from her pierced lungs. Her skin was still warm, and Shirah cursed an Alpha’s long life as she held the hand of her dead daughter, and placed a hand on the tiny stomach of the youngest Riddick, a future Alpha of Furya who was no more.

 

Her grief consumed her until she could think of nothing else – not even the slaughter of her people whom she was supposed to be protecting – until she felt something under her hand. Her eyes snapped open and she looked down at the corpse of the baby, and felt a weak heartbeat flutter under her fingertips.

 

Of course. The child was an Alpha, and the army’s leader had not known that, and Alphas could survive what regular Furyans would die from. It was at that moment, with the weak heartbeat and the intake of breath once she loosened the umbilical cord, that Shirah realised what this meant.

 

Centuries ago a prophecy had been made by one of their priests. The prophecy stated that the last Alpha born of Furya would be the one who would avenge their people.

 

This was the end of the Furyan race.

 

But the Riddick child would avenge them all.

 

With shaking hands, Shirah rose to her feet and cradled the child in her arms, already feeling him stir back to life even though he still looked like a tiny corpse. With her sword, she sliced the umbilical cord, pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead and closed her unseeing eyes. Then she spoke her final words to the Consensus.

 

“The youngest Riddick is the Alpha of prophecy. This is the end of our people, but we will not fall until we have spent the last drop of Furyan blood. Help me to get the child offworld, and when he is matured, he will avenge our people,” she spoke, and the Alphas around the world rallied the people.

 

The Furyans were going to war for the last time.

 

Shirah wrapped the child in a protective blanket that would shield him from any stray debris, and prayed that his flesh would stay mottled for just a little longer, just long enough for him to get to the spaceport, just long enough for the army to think that he was still dead and that she, as a grandmother gone mad with grief, had sent off a child’s corpse into the sky.

 

Shirah steeled herself, and then ran. The spaceport was not far, and she could already see ships taking off, most of them being shot down by the sarcophagus-like spacecrafts of the enemy, though the ships of non-Furyan design seemed to be targeted less. Few foreigners lived on Furya, but they did live, and Shirah hoped that not all of their ships had left, for they were her only chance of getting the young Riddick off the planet alive.

 

As she began her final run to the spaceport, Furyans all around her protected her and the child with their dying breaths and spilled blood and cries of, “protect the Alpha!” though she knew they did not refer to her, but her grandson, who still looked so small and unbreathing. She heard some of the enemy laugh as they saw the small bundle in her arms that she and their people so passionately protected, and she arrived at the spaceport within minutes, just as the army’s leader began to approach her from across the battlefield with his sword drawn.

 

One foreign ship remained in port, and Shirah ran to it, but stumbled and fell when something slashed her ankle – the army’s leader had thrown one of her own knives at her, and her achilles tendon had been slashed. On the loading ramp of the ship, one of the foreigners looked down to her in shock and recognition.

 

“Alpha Riddick,” they said, fist to their heart in respect.

 

“Please,” she begged, holding out her arms. “Take the child.” The foreigner looked down at the child she held, and thought the same as the enemy did.

 

“Alpha… he is dead,” the foreigner said with pity.

 

“Yes, he is,” came the cold, cruel boast of the army’s leader in the distance. Shirah said nothing, just pleaded with her eyes until the foreigner rushed forward and grabbed the child and retreated back to the ship. It took a few seconds for the foreigner to realise what Shirah had, and they looked to her in shock. She shook her head fiercely as she felt the undead leader come up behind her, and with a nod, the foreigner closed up the ship’s ramp and took off into the sky, and Shirah felt the iron band around her heart release.

 

The army’s leader did not order for the ship to be fired down as he laughed, and grabbed Shirah by her dreadlocked hair, pulling her up onto her knees. She swung her sword, but he was faster than even her, and he knocked it across the spaceport, keeping one hand in her hair as he held his sword to her throat in the other.

 

“Are you their leader?” he asked, and she did not reply. “How sad, to see the child dead so early in life… but I see that you are in denial. Gone mad with grief. I would have asked you to join my army had the child’s death not broken you. You would have done well at my side.”

 

Across the spaceport, Shirah locked eyes with Linus, one of their priests. He was covered in blood and his previously shoulder-length blonde hair had been hacked away at in battle and at some points was cut down right to his scalp. She pleaded with him with her eyes, and though no words were spoken, he understood. He nodded, sorrow and awe evident in his eyes as he approached the two of them.

 

“She has always been a weak leader,” he spoke to the army’s leader. “Allow me to kill her, and I will take her place in your army, if you will have me.”

 

“Oh?” the leader sneered. “And why would you do that?”

 

“Furya has always prided itself on being the most powerful warrior race. Clearly that is not true,” Linus said calmly. “Allow me to join the true warriors of the universe.” His words clearly pleased the army’s leader, who stepped away from Shirah as Linus took his place, holding his ceremonial dagger in his hand. Linus fell to his knees before Shirah, took hold of her shoulder with one hand, and with the other, plunged the dagger deep into her heart. Her eyes widened in shock and pain, though it barely registered in comparison with the grief that ran from the Furyans through the Consensus, and she fell forward to Linus’ chest. He clutched her to him, and bent his head so he could whisper into her ear.

 

“Your sacrifice will be remembered for all of time, and your actions have ensured that Furya will not fall this day. I will wait for the Riddick child to mature, and when the time comes, help him to avenge our people. Peace and Fury be with you, Alpha Shirah Riddick,” he blessed.

 

At his words, Shirah’s soul left her body and fled into the Consensus as her corpse dropped to the spaceport floor. Linus waited a moment for his hands to stop shaking, and then got to his feet and turned to the army’s leader, who looked pleased.

 

“What is your name?” he asked.

 

“Linus,” the priest replied. “And what should I call my new leader?” The undead man grinned.

 

“I am your Lord Marshall, and we are the Necromongers, and now we will be unstoppable until Underverse come.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I've headcanoned Shirah as Riddick's grandmother, because there's nothing that says she isn't. I was going to make her his mother, and then couldn't quite work out how she'd get him onto the ship having just given birth, and the logistics of Shirah not being able to stop Zhylaw from strangling Riddick while she was still attached to him. Alphas in this have pretty long lives, at least double a normal lifespan, so approximately 200 years. I hope some of you picked up on my little bits of foreshadowing and nods to the film in this chapter! And yes, the Furyan prophecy is the same one that is told to Zhylaw, though obviously it was altered a little depending on who the prophecy was told to.
> 
> Please let me know what you think and if you're interested in this continuing.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Over the following days, the dismay that followed the news that the indomitable Furyans had fallen quieted as the Necromonger army destroyed all of the plants that fell under Furya’s protection. Soon the galaxy would remember them only as a distant warrior race that had been wiped out in one fell swoop, and anything more was forgotten.

 

In a relatively small cargo frigate named the _Deimos_ , Neiorah and Mei Kleinman stared down at the small Furyan child that they cradled in their arms, the death-like pallor disappearing from his skin, the purple-red mottled complexion in his cheeks fading as their ship medic, An Siu, silently and expertly cut the umbilical cord away and checked for any contusions around the child’s neck.

 

“There will be ligature marks for a while, though I cannot say for how long. Given that he is the grandson of the Alpha, we will not find out if he is an Alpha for a few months. Beyond their improved physical strength, speed and senses, I do not know enough about Alpha Furyan physiology to be able to say more,” An said apologetically, placing her sterilised scissors back into her medical kit. Her dark hair was tied back into a severe ponytail, though her personality was anything but.

 

Neiorah stared down at the face of the youngest Riddick and remembered the pleading look that Shirah had given her as she fell to her knees in front of the ship, begging them to take the seemingly dead child away. Neiorah had never met the Alpha, most foreigners spent their time around the spaceport where there were facilities that suited offworlders, including actual lighting and air-conditioning, but what she had heard of Shirah had been the opposite of what she had seen at the spaceport. The Alpha’s face had been contorted by pain and grief, tear tracks encrusted onto her face, blood smeared but holding the child with such care.

 

“Do you think… do you think Furya will survive the army?” Mei asked from where she was pressed up against Neiorah’s side, staring down at the child that Shirah Riddick had just asked them to protect with her life.

 

“I hope so,” Neiorah replied quietly as An pronounced the infant healthy. He was hardy, like all Furyans were. “But the way Shirah looked at me… I don’t think _she_ thinks they will survive. And if she doesn’t…”

 

“Furya will fall,” Mei finished. “I can’t even think about what that would be like. A galaxy without the Furyans. What will the other planets in their system do without them? The other planets that are under Furya’s protection? I mean, _tā mā de_ , what are we going to do about the grandson of an Alpha?”

 

Neiorah looked from her wife down to the small infant in her arms, barely an hour old, a newborn that they had absolutely no idea about, no facilities to take care of, and the genocide of an entire planet they were fleeing from. She placed a dark, slender finger on the infant’s pale chest, feeling the tiny heartbeat fluttering strong in his ribcage, and one of his hands blindly grabbed her finger and squeezed tight. Neiorah melted.

 

“Well, we always talked about adopting a child, Mei…” she said quietly.

 

Mei raised an eyebrow. “Yes, a human child, not a child that could possibly be an _Alpha Furyan_. How are we supposed to take care of him? Feed him? Raise him? He doesn’t even have a name!”

 

At Mei’s outburst, Eli Badillo popped their head around the corner and frowned at the three women staring down at the small child. Eli approached them and leaned down far enough that their shoulder-length hair tickled the child’s face, and the infant let out a small sneeze.

 

“Cute kid,” Eli said. “We’re out of immediate Furyan space, but Asul’s not really sure where we go from here. There aren’t exactly any authorities nearby considering that the Furyans _are_ the authorities for the entire quadrant. They would be wiped out by the time we send for help.”

 

“Is subspace transmission a possibility?” Mei asked.

 

“Nope,” Eli replied. “Whoever it was that attacked, their entire fleet comes equipped with jamming tech that covers the whole system – probably why none of the Furyan off-world detectors sensed them coming. We won’t be out of range until we’re completely out of the Furyan system. I can try and send a message then, but those assholes might be able to pick up our ping and come after us.”

 

“Then have Asul send us to a trade planet, we need to get resupplied for everything we left behind on Furya, and I guess we need baby supplies too,” Neiorah said.

 

“We got another crew member, then?” Eli asked. “What’s it’s name?”

 

“Not sure,” Mei said. “He’s a Riddick, we know that much, but Shirah didn’t give us a name. Just told us to take the baby and run.”

 

“He looks like a George,” Eli said.

 

“We’re _not_ calling him George.”

 

“Samir?”

 

“No.”

 

“Melvin?”

 

“Definitely not.”

 

“Bao?”

 

“Does he look like a Bao to you?”

 

“Esteban!”

 

“ _No_.”

 

“He needs a strong name,” An Siu piped up from where she was packing her medical scanners way. “From what I learned, the Alphas all have strong names, and if this Riddick child comes to be one, his name must be worthy of his status.”

 

“His mother’s name was Shirah, right?” Eli asked.

 

“Grandmother,” Mei corrected.

 

“ _Grandmother?_ She was, like, thirty,” Eli replied.

 

“Try going on eighty,” Neiorah said. “Alpha Furyans have nearly double the lifespan of a regular Furyan and can live to around two hundred years, and can still be a fighting warrior as old as one hundred and fifty. But yes, Shirah was this child’s grandmother.”

 

“Shirah means ‘the song’,” Eli said, looking down at their translator. “We could probably try and come up with something Furyan for the kid, but considering that we should be hiding the fact that he is Furyan from those crazy undead assholes who wanted to kill all the kids we should probably name him something slightly more Standard.” The crew stood in silence for a few moments, looking down at the baby who held onto Neiorah’s finger so tightly, not even knowing the slaughter that his people were going through. No – they were not his people. If that army was insistent on killing all Furyans and Shirah was so desperate to get him offworld, they could never tell him that he was Furyan.

 

“Richard,” An said into the silence. “It means ‘king’ or ‘powerful leader’. Standard name, strong but nothing too unique, not Furyan in the slightest.”

 

“Richard…” Neiorah mused, looking at the sleeping child. Yes, that name fit him well. “Richard Riddick. Our son.”

 

“Our entirely normal adopted space son, who may or may not grow up to have superior strength, senses and glowing silver eyes that see in the dark,” Mei drawled sarcastically. At that, the pilot’s voice came over the ship’s intercom.

 

“ _Hey Captain?_ ” the voice asked.

 

“Yes, Asul?” Neiorah asked.

 

“ _Nearest trade planet is Ieybos IV, just a few days out at top speed. It’s small, but Eli tells me there’s a kid on board and I’m not sure how well they do with cryo. We might be able to get a job there, but as I said, it’s small,_ ” their pilot said.

 

“It’s the best shot we have, but we’ll see if Ryan can pull out all stops the charm,” Neiorah replied. “We’ll just have to make sure Richard here doesn’t starve in the meantime. Does anyone have any idea what baby Furyans eat?”

 

“ _Pretty sure it’s milk like every other species in the galaxy, boss,_ ” Asul teased.

 

“Yes, thank you for your input, Asul,” Neiorah replied. “Go back to your damn sudoku.”

 

“Don’t swear in front of the kid, boss,” Eli chastised.

 

“We can probably fill out some adoption papers on Ieybos IV,” Mei said. “We might have to get Ryan to charm them out of someone, but if that doesn’t work… An, do you have any contacts that could get us adoption papers?” The doctor looked a little embarrassed every time her slightly criminal past was brought up, and her face flushed, but she nodded.

 

“Okay then, it’s sorted. We’re keeping him,” Neiorah said.

 

“Should we…” Eli started, and then stopped. “I mean, if we’re trying to keep him out of undead hands, shouldn’t we change his surname as well? I don’t imagine Riddick is very common.”

 

Mei frowned. “I don’t think they were after anyone in particular,” she said. “It seemed like it was a planet-wide assault on the Furyans, which is ridiculous considering everyone knows that you don’t attack Furyans on their homeworld, but that is exactly what they did. I think they were aiming solely for genocide – you’ve heard the rumors about planets at the outer rim of the galaxy going dark.”

 

“You think it’s _them_?” Eli asked, and then whistled. “Shit. Furya’s a long way from the far rim. Must’ve had some grudge against them.”

 

“Maybe they knew that the Furyans were their biggest enemies if their goal is to… I don’t know, destroy all life in the universe, or whatever,” Neiorah said. “So they attack the Furyans to make sure that nobody can stop them, so they were just going after all of them, not individuals. I don’t think they’d know Shirah’s surname, so he can probably keep the name Riddick. I don’t want to take everything away from him, especially if we’ll raise him human.”

 

“Hey, Captain?” Eli piped up. “Can you make me godparent?”

 

“Eli, I wouldn’t trust you with a damn cactus, let alone a child. Go play with your subspace radios,” Neiorah teased. Eli mimicked her in a mocking, high-pitched voice, but smiled when they left, and gave Richard a small kiss on the forehead as they did so.

 

“If you think Eli’s bad with him, just think about what Ryan will get up to,” Mei said, and both An and Neiorah shuddered at the thought.

 

“Please never let Galloway take him anywhere,” An pleaded quietly.

 

“At least never _alone_ ,” Neiorah amended. Ryan Galloway was a fantastic trader with enough charisma that he could’ve been a politician, but he decided that he liked traveling the universe far too much to remain grounded on a planet and had hooked up with them a few years back. He consisted of their entire PR department, and since he’d come on board their business had boomed – he just shouldn’t be left alone with children. Charismatic or not, the guy was a disaster when it came to anything resembling responsibility.

 

The CS _Deimos_ touched down on Ieybos IV just over two days later, well out of Furyan space, and the news of the Furyans’ demise had already reached the small planet. Neiorah tasked Ryan with finding some business – trade or cargo, as per usual – while Asul procured anything they needed to repair the minor damage they’d sustained while leaving Furyan airspace. Eli was on the hunt for baby supplies, scrolling through page after page of baby needs on the extranet as they muttered and headed off towards the markets.

 

Neiorah, Mei and An hunted down the nearest organisation that sold adoption papers and rights, but were turned down when they couldn’t give any legal identification for Richard or his origins. One of An’s contacts from her slightly criminal past came through, however, and sent through falsified information to the agency that then allowed them to fill out the adoption papers.

 

“Tell Naoko thank you, from us,” Mei said as their paperwork was finalised. Richard B. Riddick – the adoption papers from Ieybos IV required a child to have a middle name – was officially the adopted son of Neiorah and Mei Kleinman. Eli Badillo was _not_ his godparent. An Siu picked up a book on their way back to the ship that contained all the information they would need to know about raising a child from infancy, but Richard was determined to break all the rules as he was already able to support his own head, which should’ve taken him about a month to accomplish at the earliest.

 

“Oh, he’s definitely an Alpha,” Mei said as Richard lay on his stomach, reaching out for the small wooden blocks he couldn’t quite grab, looking about with interest although he couldn’t focus on anything too far away from him. Eli returned shortly after with three crates of baby supply deliveries and a huge grin on their face, followed by Ryan who informed them all that they had a job. They were to deliver a large shipment of medical supplies to Ieybos Prime, where an outbreak of a potentially deadly disease had just started. If they got in early enough, the disease would be eradicated, and the planet’s government would happily double the payment. Neiorah hadn’t spent years making sure their crew had a reputation for being reliable and trustworthy for no reason.

 

“Hey guys, so I have good news and bad news,” Asul said as a way of greeting, coming up the ship’s ramp with a toolkit tied around his waist. His hair was curly and unruly, and he kept it tied back into a messy bun atop his head.

 

“Asul, if you tell me that my ship is seriously damaged, I might just kill you,” Neiorah threatened lightly, and their pilot laughed.

 

“Nothing like that, I promise,” he said. “Bad news is the kid can’t go into cryo, but the good news is that he _can_ when he’s three months old. Obviously since we can’t be sticking needles into babies, there’s a specially designed inhalant form for infants, which means that we can’t take jobs outside of the solar system for a few months.”

 

Mei sighed. “It could be worse. If the Ieybos Prime job pays well and we ration, that should last us until he’s old enough. We will be feeding one more mouth now, but he isn’t consuming an awful lot.”

 

“Yeah, just this crappy fake milk,” Eli said, appearing in the cargo bay entrance with Ryan. “But it’s better than the protein formula he’s been having for the last two days. Try it out, little guy.” Eli tossed the bottle to Mei, who caught it deftly. She gently picked up Richard from his position on the floor and held the bottle to his lips. He immediately started sucking on it, and Mei smiled as he eagerly began to consume the milk. Ryan came in from the doorway and crouched down behind Mei, smiling brilliantly down at the Furyan child.

 

“So this is our new family member, eh?” he asked. “Can I hold him?”

 

“ _No_ ,” said every single member of the crew, and Ryan pouted.

 

According to An Siu’s book, Richard was developing far faster in all aspects than the book estimated him to be, and she concluded that it was likely that Richard was an Alpha Furyan. Within a month, the dark hair that had begun to grow atop his head began to corkscrew into curls, and Asul had insisted that he was taking after him, and that he’d grow up to be a fabulous pilot. Neiorah was a little sad that she was now, once again, the only bald member of the crew, but she did admit that Richard – her _son_ – was much cuter with hair. At night, he slept on their bed, more often than not lying on Neiorah’s chest, little hands dangling down each side of her ribcage as he snoozed on. His breath was slow and quiet when he slept, and Neiorah could feel his own rapid little heartbeat opposite her own. Mei would drag gentle fingers up and down Richard’s spine, and he would let out a tiny little contented noise as she did so.

 

Richard was growing nicely even with the milk formula, and he was incredibly talkative by the time he was three months old, grinning toothlessly at any of the crewmembers he was with, babbling away incoherently. Every member of the crew spent time with him during their free time – with the exception of Ryan, who was always supervised whenever he was near the infant – and An Siu could often be found huddled away with him in the unlikeliest of places, singing to him in Mandarin. Richard liked to grasp hold of Neiorah’s fingers, and had predictably latched onto her and Mei the most, but enjoyed pulling on Asul’s hair. Eli was the most playful with the child, picking him up and whirling him about with aeroplane noises, and Richard’s first laugh was granted to the delighted mechanic, who boasted about it for weeks on end.

 

At just under four months, Richard was sitting up and engaged in baby conversations with the crew, no matter if it was Ryan speaking Standard, An Siu’s Mandarin lullabies, Asul going on about astrophysics in Arabic or Eli’s rapid Spanish. Neiorah had never been more glad that the languages had survived and flourished in the universe despite the death of the human homeworld centuries ago, and secretly thought that Richard enjoyed her Swahili stories the most.

 

An Siu was the first to notice that Richard’s constant wiggling wasn’t excitement, but discomfort, despite his almost perpetual smile and talkative personality.

 

“ _Ó, wǒ de shàngdì_!” she swore at the results showing on her diagnostic scanner. “We did not take into consideration the fact that he is away from his home environment. The Furyan body is far more dense than those of regular humans due to their heavy gravity, and though most of it is genetic, much of it is due to development on their planet. His bones are weakening due to the lack of gravity.” Once the initial panic on the ship had subsided, Asul and Eli had worked together to create a heavy-gravity chamber for Richard that they used as his crib. As long as he spent enough time sleeping in it, his bones would harden and continue to develop in the proper Furyan way, though this meant less time with him snuggled between Neiorah and Mei in their bed.

 

Eventually the crew was able to safely put Richard into cryo so they could make the much-needed trip out of the Ieybos system and into systems more populated with cargo and trade work.

 

“So this is your new son?” Naoko asked after the ship’s ramp had lowered and the crew approached him. He and An shared a warm hug and he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. They exchanged a few quiet words in the Japanese-Mandarin hybrid language that had emerged only in the Hunan province on Jiaque, their home planet.

 

“Yes, this is Richard,” Neiorah said proudly as she held their tiny child in her arms. He was still a little dazed from the cryo, but he was looking around the bustling spaceport with growing interest. Naoko reached a finger out and touched Richard’s forehead, and then ran the finger lightly down to the tip of his nose. Richard went a little cross-eyed as he tried to follow Naoko’s finger, and then he sneezed. Naoko laughed and led them through the spaceport and through the bazaar, where there was barely any room to maneouver between the tightly-packed crowds. He’d promised them a well-paying job, but the situation was a little more shady than Neiorah would usually have liked.

 

“The thing is,” Naoko explained once they’d all crammed into his newest house. “It’s not strictly legal, and it is technically more of a smuggling operation than anything else.”

 

“We aren’t smugglers, Naoko, you know that,” Neiorah said sternly, passing Richard off to a supervised Ryan so that she and Mei could concentrate more on the conversation. “Once people hear that we’ve started smuggling, our reputation will drop below board, and although we aren’t one hundred percent by the books, we want to be respected and known as good traders.”

 

Naoko ran a hand through his hair. “This is… a very difficult situation, and needs to be handled delicately. It’s a smuggling operation because you need to get the cargo off planet without the government knowing. You can’t let the government know because we may have broken out the slaves from the mines and they need to get off planet before the government tracks them down and executes them, or puts them back into service.”

 

“Jesus,” Neiorah swore, and Mei echoed her quietly. “You’ve been keeping them hidden for a month?”

 

“We can’t hide them any longer,” Naoko said. “I let you know that this job was going as soon as we broke them out, and logically we knew it’d take you a month to get here in cryo. We have an insider who’s keeping the local government off our tracks, but we can’t risk the slaves staying here any longer. We need to get them to the fifth planet in the system, Albanus, where they’ll be protected under their law. It’s risky, and I know you have Richard to think about now, but your reputation is what I’m counting on. You’re seen as completely above-board, trusted traders – they won’t suspect a thing during leaving inspection.”

 

“How would you hide them?” Mei asked. “Spaceport infrared will pick up more than the seven people registered aboard.”

 

“I’ve procured falsified shipping manifests that state that you will be delivering twelve crates of highly sensitive toxins. That will be the reason for the heavy IR shielding we have embedded into the crates, along with a reason for customs to not do a visual inspection. We’re hoping that your reputation alone will get you offworld without too much trouble, but just in case it doesn’t, we have another insider working at the spaceport who will be able to vouch for you or cause a distraction if necessary,” Naoko explained. “I understand that this is a lot to ask, and you can discuss it amongst yourselves, but we do not have much time and you are our only option.”

 

With a bow much too formal for someone who knew them so well, Naoko left the room and headed back out to the bazaar for the meantime. The room was silent with the exception of Richard’s gurgling and Ryan’s cooing noises.

 

“We’ve got to do it, boss,” Asul piped up after a few minutes.

 

“Do we? We have a child to think about now, Asul. My _son_ ,” Neiorah replied. Mei reached over and placed her hand on top of Neiorah’s, interlinking her pale fingers with Neiorah’s dark ones.

 

“We couldn’t save the Furyans,” she said quietly. “We can save these people.” Mei’s eyes were wide and pleading, and even though Neiorah’s instincts were screaming at her to run away from anything that even hinted at danger to their son, in her heart she knew that the deaths of the ex-slaves would be on her head and hands for the rest of her life.

 

“Alright,” she relented. “But we’ll need Ryan to turn on the charm.” Ryan snapped a quick salute at her, nearly dropping Richard in the process.

 

The crates were loaded into their cargo bay the next day, large hovercrafts transporting the massive insulated crates across the spaceport and into their ship. At any other port this would have drawn the attention,or even just curiosity of the authorities, but at a planet with a port as busy as this, they were just another bunch of traders impatiently waiting outside while their cargo was transferred.

 

Mei and Neiorah supervised while An stood in the shade of their ship with Richard. The planet had two suns and was too bright for Richard’s sensitive eyes when they were out in the midday sun, and Eli had made the excuse that they were off to find some baby sunglasses and was hunting around the bazaar with a gleeful yet terrifying expression. After an hour of supervising the loading and Mei holding her jittery fingers, everything was finally loaded and Eli had been successful in procuring a pair of baby sunglasses for Richard, although they were really more like goggles. He looked ridiculous in them, but Eli loved them.

 

Ryan handed off the forged papers to the spaceport authorities with his infamous grin and Naoko made a final check of all the crates. He would knock thrice on a crate, wait for four knocks back, and then move on to the next one. Ryan returned with the papers all signed off and offical-like, and Neiorah let out a deep breath. Only the inspections next, and then they’d be off the planet and into safe space.

 

“Once you’re off world I’ll inform the Albanites that you’re on your way with the precious cargo. They should tail you all the way into landing to make sure that you haven’t been followed, and they’ll unload everyone once you touch down. When you’re out of orbit you can crack open the crates, the temperature will be steadily rising in there due to the reflective surfaces we’ve put up to fool the infrared,” Naoko said quietly as they packed up to leave.

 

“Thanks, Naoko,” Mei said with a smile. “But just so you know, if we get arrested or killed, we’re haunting your ass.”

 

“I’ll sing the _móushā bìqiú_ song for days until you beg for death,” An Siu teased, and Eli spat out their tea at An’s words and Naoko’s horrified expression. Asul announced over the comms that they were ready for final inspections, and Naoko pressed a kiss to An’s hair. Neiorah grasped his hand in her own, and then he was gone and their cargo ramp closed. Neiorah headed up to the bridge where Asul was powering up, and she braced herself on the back of his chair as the spaceport authorities approached. They began to scan the ship, and Neiorah felt her heart slamming against her chest. If they got caught they’d be arrested, possibly killed or turned into slavery themselves. What would happen to Richard? Would Shirah Riddick’s sacrifice be meaningless?

 

The inspection continued on like usual until one of the spaceport guards frowned at the device in his hand, which was pointed towards their cargo bay. The guard looked over their ship’s manifest and then furiously signalled for Asul to contact them. With an audible swallow, he did.

 

“ _CS Deimos, this is Cicero Spaceport.”_

 

“Go, Cicero Spaceport,” Asul replied with white-knuckled hands.

 

 _“I’m picking up a strange reading near your cargo bay. It looks like some sort of gravitational chamber? It was not registered on your declaration,_ ” the voice said, and Neiorah held back her relieved noise.

 

“Cicero, this is Captain Kleinman. The high-gravity chamber is for my son, Richard. He has Surfki Syndrome and requires the chamber to sleep in. Do you need the paperwork for that?” she lied smoothly. The guard was silent for a few moments as they conferred with others.

 

“ _Not necessary, CS Deimos. The chamber is small enough to corroberate. All inspections are complete, you’re free to launch._ ” Asul cut off contact, and Neiorah let out a deep, relieved sigh. With final checks complete, Asul flew them out of the spaceport and then out of the atmosphere, breaking into zero-g within minutes. The artificial gravity attuned itself automatically, and Neiorah clapped Asul on the shoulder as she headed down to the cargo bay. They waited a few minutes before they made sure that they weren’t being followed out of Cicero airspace, and then the crew set to cracking open the crates. The people inside took in great gulps of cool hair, their hair damp and skin covered in sweat from the warm temperatures inside the crates.

 

“Thank you,” said one of the ex-slaves, a girl no older than fifteen, and Neiorah knew that she’d made the right decision.

 

After dropping their special cargo off at Albanus, Ryan had taken to childproofing the ship incredibly seriously. Though most of the time he simply wrapped bubble wrap around anything that seemed even slightly pointy, despite the fact that Riddick didn’t learn to crawl until he was six months old. Neiorah and Mei made sure that whenever they were planetside, they gave Richard enough interaction with other children and people that weren’t the crew, just like An’s book told them to do.

 

It was on the morning of his first birthday, complete with candles and cake, that the reality of the easy familiarity they’d settled into hit Neiorah square in the chest as she watched Mei go through her nightly _t’ai chi ch’uan_ motions, Richard bouncing happily where he stood with his hold on the edge of their bed.

 

“ _Malaika_ … what are we doing?” Neiorah murmured quietly. “Richard’s birthday will forever be the anniversary of the day his people were slaughtered. We are raising our son in space. He has to sleep in a high-gravity chamber so his bones can fuse correctly. One day he will wake up with eyes that shine silver. One day we will have to tell him that his blood-soaked grandmother entrusted him to our care because we were the only ones left with a chance to escape the Furyan Genocide.”

 

Mei paused in her motions and looked over to Richard, who was babbling happily away, the party hat that Ryan had procured crumpled and forgotten on the floor next to him. Mei crossed their bedroom and sat next to Neiorah, making sure that she didn’t jostle the bed so much that Richard lost his hold on the mattress.

 

“Neiorah, _bǎo bèi_ , stop worrying,” Mei admonished gently. “We won’t have to worry about any of that until he is much older. An Siu said that by his second birthday, his bones will be strong enough that the gravity chamber won’t be necessary. Look at him, my heart. Our son, happy and strong, and he belongs to us just as much as he did Shirah Riddick. Think back on the last year we have spent with him, think of how his smile changed once his teeth came through. Think of his laugh as Eli whirls him around the room. Think of how An Siu is the only one who can make him fall asleep with her lullabies. Think of how the entire crew loves and adores our son, and how we will continue to love him throughout the rest of his life. Think of the sacrifice that Shirah made when she gave her life for his, and know that she would be so proud of the young boy he is becoming.”

 

Neiorah ignored the burning in her eyes as she grasped her wife and kissed her deeply, running her fingers through Mei’s dark brown hair as her heart surged. She only broke away when Richard spoke up from closer than he’d been, and his babbling sounded suspiciously like _mama_ on repeat.

 

“Oh my stars,” Neiorah gasped as she broke away from her wife and looked down to their son. He’d managed to scoot over to them using the edge of the bed to keep his balance as he walked, and he grinned up at them with his odd number of teeth. “Did you hear that, Mei?”

 

 _Mum-mum-mum-mum_ was definitely what Richard was saying, and he was staring straight at the two of them when he said it. Neiorah grasped him under the armpits and heaved him up onto their lap, making him giggle, and he continued his mantra as Mei dropped her head to press a kiss to his dark curls. Already Richard’s eyes were forming a barely noticeable metallic sheen across his eyes like most Furyans had, though they would likely only become the full silver Alpha eyes once he reached maturity. Mei wrapped an arm around Neiorah’s shoulders, and tickled Richard gently with her free hand.

 

“I love you, Mei,” Neiorah said quietly. “And I love you too, Richard.”

 

“ _Mum-mum_ ,” he replied cheerfully, and Neiorah let out a suspiciously wet sounding laugh. She thanked the stars everyday for the child that Shirah Riddick brought into their life.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like Riddick's new family :)


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